Marguerite
by Huntress of the stars
Summary: A series of monologues from Marguerite's perspective, based on the A&E mini series.
1. Marguerite

I returned home, and what I saw was bloodshed. It frightened me to no end, until I was prepared to sit in an empty red corner and cry until Madame Guillotine cut off my head with the rest of the innocents. I did cry. Every night I spent in that wretched cell, I wept for your return. They tell me I am vain actress, and I am. Vain, selfish, arrogant. But at that point in my life, I didn't care about myself anymore. I didn't, Percy! Not once did the thought of my escape even flicker through my mind. All I thought of, all I dreamed of was you, that you were safe. I prayed that you would survive and continue on, even if I was confined to headless death. France needed you – no one needed me. Chauvelin's frequent visits reminded me of my meaningless existence, and all the more I hoped you would survive, if only to shoot the wretched man's heart out. He mocked me, Percy, until I could no longer hold my tears. He spoke of you, your faithlessness, your pathetic defense of the worthless prisoners.

When I saw you, my heart soared to the endless limits of the sky, and I confessed all love, all devotion to the one man who had captured me so entirely, so lovingly. Do you remember? I felt safe for that one minute in your arms, one minute to the eternity of cold death I would face. I wasn't an actress anymore – there was no need to mask my emotion, no need to twist and manipulate words. I wasn't Lady Blakeney, the proud wife of a dull husband, the witty love of London. I was Marguerite St. Juste, the woman who was deeply, deeply in love with Sir Percy, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the man who saved my heart.

I cannot imagine life without you, just as I cannot imagine life without Armand. But you understand that he is my brother, and you are my soul. The guillotine did not seem foreboding, for in my heart I knew that I was safe. Whether in your arms or in heaven watching over you, all ends would be tied. I didn't care anymore, whether I would live or die. As long as you knew, as long as you lived…  
But here we are, alive and still in love. I don't deserve you – no one does. But I cannot live without you. I would wither and fade in the last embers of your loving eyes, and I would be happy to see that glance one final time. I don't want to die alone. I don't want to live alone. You are my savior, Percy, and I love you far more than the swooning maidens love their Scarlet Pimpernel. But you are mine, mine alone, and I will never give my treasure for anything in the world – not even my own life.


	2. The Red, The Gray, and The Green

Had I not been the wife of the Scarlet Pimpernel, I would be free from all worry and all desire. I would sit and knit in a richly furnished mansion or on a dirty street, without a care in the world that my husband would die. I would love whomever it was I was wed to, yet he would have a safety to him that I would not drown, should he cease to exist. I would be attached, yet not so that the binds cannot be cut in the dire hour. Had I not been Marguerite St. Juste then, when Sir Percy came to court me, I would have breathed easy with every step I took. Had I not wed the man, I would have watched the guillotines flow with noble blood, and I would have wept with the sorrow of my forced inaction. I would remain captured upon the stage, living in those brief moments, brief sparks of talent in love.

I would have been the richest woman in all of France, in all the world. They would have known me, and loved me. I would be held in thousands of arms at every trip upon the smallest pebble, and the scarlet pimpernels that grew within my hands would wilt and die, and I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care at all. I would walk about the streets of Paris, the gray and green, and dream of a better future. And when it came, when the red stopped flowing from the platforms of Madame's hunger, I would be free.

I would fly in the arms of a man who adored me, travel the world, remain naïve and young forever. I would not know love, but I would not know defeat, or fear, or hatred. I would remain as I was, as I am, and as I could have been, forever in love without a doubt in my mind. I would feel it, the scraping of that sole 'love,' and I would giggle with the other women of the mysterious Pimpernel. And at the burning of the flag, I would cheer with the rest, lock up the despair in my heart.

I would not know the cold of a dark cell, nor the light of my beloved's face. I would not know the happiness of seeing him again, not would I feel eternity flow around me in a minute, a second, or a dream. There would be no clocks in my head, no cuckoo birds ticking away until their final snap. I would sit at home, an actress on the stage, a housewife with unhappy children, or a beggar on the bleeding streets, but I would be safe and content with discomfort. I would _live_. I would _breathe_.

Yet I choose not to.

Had I not been the wife the Scarlet Pimpernel, I would have been happy. Yet joy surpasses all doubt when I see his face. Had I not been the wife of my Percy, I would have drowned in the red, the gray, and the green.


End file.
